Any news on widescreen? by Shuggie

According to Molina, they had already shot "Serenity" and "The Train Job" in letterbox before FOX dictated that eps must be in standard tv format. Expect the premiere to be re-formatted.

--- Joe

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Thursday, September 12, 2002 9:41 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
According to Molina, they had already shot "Serenity" and "The Train Job" in letterbox before FOX dictated that eps must be in standard tv format. Expect the premiere to be re-formatted.

--- Joe

My understanding is that...

"Serenity" (original pilot) - letterbox
"Train Job" - letterbox
all other eps - standard

I heard that Fox thinks its audience won't understand letterbox... that they'll think their TVs are broken.

Like all those idiots who watch those other crappy "wide-screen" shows like Angel, ER and West Wing!

I might as well sell my truck and buy a f

ing high def TV so I can get the whole picture. Aaagh!

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Thursday, September 12, 2002 11:34 AM

LIVINGIMPAIRED

FOX must be so used to being stupid and close-minded, that they must think that it's a universal conditon.

Come to think of it, they aren't far wrong.

Grr. Arg.

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Thursday, September 12, 2002 2:33 PM

I believe FOX is in the right to introduce the show in standard format. Some people are turned off by widescreen, and FIREFLY needs all the viewers it can get. If the series establishes itself, FIRE will go wide in season 2 or 3.

--- Joe

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Thursday, September 12, 2002 4:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
I believe FOX is in the right to introduce the show in standard format. Some people are turned off by widescreen, and FIREFLY needs all the viewers it can get. If the series establishes itself, FIRE will go wide in season 2 or 3.

--- Joe

True, lots of viewers would be nice... even those with tiny, black & white TVs. More episodes = better than letterbox.

Maybe if we're lucky, Fox will put FF Season One out as quickly as they are with "24" and "The Shield" so that my widescreen desires can be satisfied.

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Friday, September 13, 2002 6:51 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
I believe FOX is in the right to introduce the show in standard format. Some people are turned off by widescreen, and FIREFLY needs all the viewers it can get. If the series establishes itself, FIRE will go wide in season 2 or 3.

I don't care that much about the screen ratio per se. I think widescreen would give more of a sense of the 'epic' nature of the subject (you think it's a long way down the street to the chemist etc) but that's not too important.

What sucks is that they let Joss go ahead and shoot in widescreen and now we don't get to see what he shot in it's intended format.

If they shoot in widescreen, I want to see it in widescreen. If they shoot in 4:3 then I want to see it that way.

Shug

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Friday, September 13, 2002 8:17 AM

Quote:

If they shoot in widescreen, I want to see it in widescreen. If they shoot in 4:3 then I want to see it that way.

Shug

Interestingly enough, ME shoots all of their shows in widescreen and then output to 4:3 -- it's not panned and scanned like they do when they edit widescreen films for television.

While Angel is the only one that gets shown in 16:9 on the regular broadcast, you can get Buffy in 16:9 on DVD (& see it broadcast that way in some countries outside the US).

What stinks is that Joss will be forced to conform to the 4:3 format for significant images and not use the 16:9 to its full, epic self!

m the tiny screened ones, I want my f

ng widescreen now!!!!!

Whoops... "episodes" I meant lots and lots of viewers and episodes.

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Friday, September 13, 2002 9:15 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by malcolm:

Interestingly enough, ME shoots all of their shows in widescreen and then output to 4:3 -- it's not panned and scanned like they do when they edit widescreen films for television.

While Angel is the only one that gets shown in 16:9 on the regular broadcast, you can get Buffy in 16:9 on DVD (& see it broadcast that way in some countries outside the US).

Buffy is physically filmed in widescreen but framed for 4:3. As far as I'm concerned that's the 'intended' AR. Oh plus Joss said he preferred 4:3 for Buffy and 16:9 for Angel - cos Angel's more 'cinematic'.

I have Buffy S4 DVDs - the widescreen ones - and there are a couple of scenes where they've used the full 16:9 frame but most not. In fact there are some obvious bloopers that come from this fact. Like in 'Who are you?' the scene by the firetruck. In the 4:3 version Willow speaks a line from off-screen. In the 16:9 version we hear the line and can actually see Willow - who's lips don't move!

Sorry but this is an old bugbear of mine. A ratio is just a number - it's what you do with it that counts.

Shug

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Friday, September 13, 2002 9:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by malcolm:

Interestingly enough, ME shoots all of their shows in widescreen and then output to 4:3 -- it's not panned and scanned like they do when they edit widescreen films for television.

While Angel is the only one that gets shown in 16:9 on the regular broadcast, you can get Buffy in 16:9 on DVD (& see it broadcast that way in some countries outside the US).

"Output to 4:3" sounds like the footage is resized, distorting the picture, which is why "pan and scan" is the chosen method of re-formatting. I was preparing a longer post, but I see Shuggie stole my thunder. What she said.

I'm puzzled as to why R2 BtVS DVDs are letterboxed (for the reasons Shug mentioned). There isn't any "information" on periphery of the frame that was intended to be seen. Isn't that a waste of memory? Do Region 2 fans prefer widescreen format over more extras?

What's more confusing is that R2 AtS season 1 sets are standard, but season 2 are letterboxed. And the WB (in the US) started airing it in 16:9 in season 3.

--- Joe

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Friday, September 13, 2002 10:05 AM

Quote:
"Output to 4:3" sounds like the footage is resized, distorting the picture, which is why "pan and scan" is the chosen method of re-formatting. I was preparing a longer post, but I see Shuggie stole my thunder. What she said.

Not to get overly technical (and confuse myself) but, the way I heard it is that they shoot it with a 16:9 mat on the camera and on the monitor they set up a 4:3 "box" to know what is inside or outside the 4:3 frame. Any of the main action or necessary visual information has to be "in the box" for the 4:3 version, but they keep the full 16:9 frame clear for widescreen purposes - e.g. DVD.

Quote:
I'm puzzled as to why R2 BtVS DVDs are letterboxed (for the reasons Shug mentioned). There isn't any "information" on periphery of the frame that was intended to be seen. Isn't that a waste of memory? Do Region 2 fans prefer widescreen format over more extras? What's more confusing is that R2 AtS season 1 sets are standard, but season 2 are letterboxed.

I've read a million different places that Buffy was never meant to be widescreen, but I guess it's what the DVD fans wanted.
- MBS

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Friday, September 13, 2002 10:27 AM

SNOWKING

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
"Output to 4:3" sounds like the footage is resized, distorting the picture, which is why "pan and scan" is the chosen method of re-formatting. I was preparing a longer post, but I see Shuggie stole my thunder. What she said.

I'm puzzled as to why R2 BtVS DVDs are letterboxed (for the reasons Shug mentioned). There isn't any "information" on periphery of the frame that was intended to be seen. Isn't that a waste of memory? Do Region 2 fans prefer widescreen format over more extras?

Yeah. Like they consult us over that.

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
"
What's more confusing is that R2 AtS season 1 sets are standard, but season 2 are letterboxed. And the WB (in the US) started airing it in 16:9 in season 3.
--- Joe

That's only the UK Angel S2 boxset in 16:9 by the way. All the other region 2 sets are 4:3. Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been looks fucking gorgeous.

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Friday, September 13, 2002 10:43 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
I was preparing a longer post, but I see Shuggie stole my thunder. What she said.

Ahem! I think you mean "what he said"!

Quote:
I'm puzzled as to why R2 BtVS DVDs are letterboxed (for the reasons Shug mentioned). There isn't any "information" on periphery of the frame that was intended to be seen. Isn't that a waste of memory? Do Region 2 fans prefer widescreen format over more extras?

Actually they're not letterboxed, they're anamorphic. If they were letterboxed they'd actually take less memory. Quick recap:

Letterboxed - a 4:3 frame with 'black bars' at the top and bottom - where the black part is actually part of the picture. So since a fair proportion of the picture is black it'll compress more. (DVDs use MPEG2 compression)

Anamorphic - a 16:9 picture is distorted proportionally into a 4:3 frame. Your DVD player/TV distorts it back. This is better than letterboxing because you're using the full available frame for picture resolution.

Widescreen TVs are very common in the UK. 40% of all TVs and 70% of all new TVs are widescreen. There's an increasing amount of broadcast programming available in widescreen - including Buffy when it's shown on BBC.

The extras on the DVDs are about the same as the other sets.

Quote:
What's more confusing is that R2 AtS season 1 sets are standard, but season 2 are letterboxed. And the WB (in the US) started airing it in 16:9 in season 3.

All I can tell you is that when it was discovered that S1 was not going to be in widescreen - about 2 months before release. There was a big campaign to get them in widescreen. We finally got a response from the head of Fox UK saying that there were no widescreen masters and promising S2 in widescreen. A promise they kept.

Is it better? Well it's not worse. There's a little extra scenery, the occasional blooper as I described above. Mostly I think the reason UK fans like widescreen is the same reason a lot US TV viewers don't - black bars. A 4:3 image on a 16:9 screen has black bars at the left and right.

So I'm pretty happy with my Buffy S4 and Angel S2 DVDs being in widescreen.

As for Angel S3 - so far I've only seen those in 4:3 - not letterboxed. Not even pan and scan - they just sliced the middle section out of the image. You wanna see what that does to the picture see here -

http://website.lineone.net/~angelcuts/wide/index.html

Shug

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Friday, September 13, 2002 5:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shuggie:
Ahem! I think you mean "what he said"!

Whoops! My apologies.

--- Joe

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Tuesday, September 17, 2002 1:24 PM

RINGWRAITH

I agree with Malcolm:

Quote:
Maybe if we're lucky, Fox will put FF Season One out as quickly as they are with "24" and "The Shield" so that my widescreen desires can be satisfied.

I don't know if Fox would do this but it's a great idea, and like "24" would offset the cost of the show.

To quote that really cool (bad) dude from "Robocop"

"I LIKE IT!"

************************************************
"How will this end?"
"In fire."
--Babylon 5, 'The Coming of Shadows'
************************************************

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Wednesday, September 18, 2002 1:34 AM

SADGEEZER

Quote:
Originally posted by Shuggie:
Actually they're not letterboxed, they're anamorphic. If they were letterboxed they'd actually take less memory. Quick recap....

Great post shuggie! That explained a lot. Yep, in the UK (terrestrial channels are predominantly widescreen format and SOOO COOOL to watch. Sky TV however (owned by fox) hardly ever (if ever) shows widescreed (dispite being on a digital satellite!)

Buffy on the BBC is exponentially better than watching it on Sky (plus, no adverts!).

WIth all the hype about the show being graphically stunning, I really hope (when they show it in the UK) that the Beeb gets it before Sky (though I doubt it).

SadGeezer.

The SadGeezers Guide to Firefly
http://www.sadgeezer.com/firefly/index.htm

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Wednesday, September 18, 2002 6:34 AM